


After the World Ends

by Winter in Autumn (TearoomSaloon)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Post-Season 2, They have The Talk, hinted Mike/Eleven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 03:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12667023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TearoomSaloon/pseuds/Winter%20in%20Autumn
Summary: And just like that, life returned to normal. Well, almost normal. There was still the matter of Jonathan Byers, and what this all meant since the sky had stopped falling.





	After the World Ends

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like everyone's written the "what are we?" fic following s2, but man, I had to do it as well.

And, almost suddenly, life falls back into place.

Not perfectly, and not without a jarring lurch, but outside of the small group of, well, monster fighters, no one had known a thing was out of place. Exhausted and sleepless, Nancy finds herself half-dozing in first period, no amount of rest following the wild battle for Will’s safety enough to recharge and get on with school. Mike hadn’t been much better in the morning, the both of them unusually quiet at the breakfast table. It will take a while to feel right again, to feel like her head is firmly attached to her shoulders and not rolling into some unknown dimension.

The first real crack in normality is the absence of Steve. He looked like utter hell when they’d all congregated back at the Byers’ house, face beat to shit, bleeding from more than one place. Her heart had sunk, but not enough. She’d still clung to Jonathan for dear life.

Another hairline fracture. Jonathan. She hasn’t seen him since. If she were being honest with herself (and she was not), she’d admit to avoiding him. Scared, nervous, unsure—three things Nancy Wheeler insisted she was not. Three things leaving her frozen, paralyzed, unable to act.

 _We only ever seem to hang out when the world is ending_.

Her words have been circling around her head since Sunday night, when she’d crawled mercifully into bed, exhausted as death, queasiness edging its way into her mind to replace the adrenaline and relief of exorcising the Mind Flayer from Will. What if she were right?

“Hey.”

It’s the lamest greeting to one of the more important conversations that needs to be had. Jonathan doesn’t look like he’s slept in the past four days, Wednesday weighing heavily on his shoulders, the bags under his eyes worse than usual. His smile picks up at the sight of her, then drops from the somberness in her eyes.

He clears his throat. “What’s up?”

“We need to talk, somewhere more private.” She glances around, painfully aware of the student body, of eyes that may or may not have been watching. “Meet me by your car after class?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Her heart thunders against her ribs as she ducks away in retreat. _Dammit, Nancy, stop running from everything!_

But she hasn’t been running. She’s been standing her ground, and she fully intends to plant her feet and roar. If she needs to roar, that is. Now, though, she'll wait in a dreadful anticipation for the last bell of the day to ring and send her running to the parking lot. She’s been rehearsing her speech in her head for over a day, trying to get the wording right, the points she needs to make.

When she stands before him under the grey sky, however, the words tumble without much power or confidence.

“There aren’t any more monsters to fight. The world’s not ending.”

His brow furrows. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“We only hang out when the world’s crashing down, right? What if that night happened only because the sky was falling?” Even as she says it, she can feel the ghost of his fingers on her skin, the heat of his breath on her neck. He’s burned into her memory, buried deep.

“Nancy, I…” He pauses and runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve had feelings for you for a long, long time. Just because we’re no longer in impending danger doesn’t mean they’ve, you know, disappeared.”

“How long is a long time?”

“Too long, all right?”

 “I still need to figure out me. If I…if mine aren’t hinging on monster hunting.” She glances up at him, a pleading look bleeding across her face. “Will you wait for me?”

“Just like you, I can’t wait forever.”

“Give me a week, maybe two. I have some things to straighten out.”

Jonathan sighs. “Steve.”

“And me. I have to figure me out.”

“Just let me know.”

They part without a kiss and it feels hollow, lacking. She tells herself that it’s just a residual want; tainted from the closeness they’d developed too quickly, too messily. She isn’t sure how she feels, what she feels, what could possibly be real anymore.

* * *

 

Steve returns the next Thursday and they stand in the alley behind the gym, a long overdue talk in the shadows of their last argument. He doesn't make much eye contact and whenever he does, guilt takes another chunk out of her flesh, its teeth sharp and hungry.

“I should have told you sooner,” she starts, eyes glued to the ground. “Nothing was really all right with me, but I wanted to cling to some sense of normality. You felt stable and I just…I pushed it all under the bed for too long.”

“So every time you said it back to me—”

"I was hoping it would start to feel true. I wanted so badly to love you, but I just…didn’t. If I could have changed that, I would.”

“Even with him in the picture now?”

“It’s not about him, it’s about you and me.” She hugs her arms to her ribs. “You deserve someone who can love you back without all the weirdness. That girl is out there, but she’s not me.”

He knows her too well. “It’s not your fault about Barb, Nance.”

“This has nothing to do with Barb.”

This has everything to do with Barb. How one stupid choice had gotten her killed, how she can’t look at him without being reminded of her guilt, of her selfishness that cost Barb her life. She can’t love him because she can’t forgive herself.

But Nancy doesn’t say a word of that out loud. She swipes at tears as they roll down her cheeks. “I’m sorry I didn’t work out for you.”

“Hey, hey, don’t beat yourself up about it.” He’s too sweet to her and his arms burn when they wrap around her shaking frame, familiar but painful. “It’s okay, Nance. It’s okay.”

She nods, but it’s not. It won’t be.

 

She gets home abnormally late, having cried herself dry in the girl’s bathroom before the sun began to set. Her fingers itch for the phone on her dresser, wanting to hear some sort of comfort or reassurance for what she’s going through. But her two closest friends aren’t options—she’d stomped one’s heart to smithereens hours ago, and the other she’s not ready to talk to just yet.

Defeated, she slinks downstairs to where Mike’s planted in front of the television. She snatches the bowl of popcorn from his lap, ignores his disgruntled snap, and flops unceremoniously on the couch. “What _is_ this?”

“Really Nancy? Have you never seen Alien? Give me the popcorn back—”

“Nope.” She pushes him away and shoves a handful into her mouth. He gives her an odd look and she realizes her eyes must still be bloodshot. “The answer to your unasked question is also no.”

“Then where have you been?”

“Studying.”

“ _Sure._ ”

She sighs. “Remember last year when we made a promise not to lie anymore and then promptly broke it?”

“Maybe?”    

“Do you like Eleven?”

Mike’s gaze turns to the carpet. He mumbles something.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I guess. Does this mean you like Jonathan?”

Her voice is low too. “I think so.”

They sit together, eyes to the TV, attention elsewhere.

“Are you going to tell him?” Mike asks during a lull.

“Depends, are you going to tell her?”

“Oh, she already knows.” His smile is sheepish, blush rosy across his cheeks.

Her little brother has this down better than she does.

She stays with him until the end of the movie, progressing from paying attention to getting lost in her thoughts. It’s felt like she’s had a hole in her chest since last Sunday. The nightmares haven't stopped, nor has the lingering sense of dread. She’s seen it in Mike’s face too, as well as Jonathan’s when she catches glances of him in school. He seems dazed, lost, as though he’s walking through a thick fog. She can’t imagine what he’s going through, but she should be there for him, shouldn’t she?

The night remains sleepless, like the one before it, and in the dark of her room, she comes to a decision. It’s much too late to call now, but if she’s quick in the morning, she can catch him before classes start and he vanishes into the air—he’s gotten good at that.

His locker has the remnants of words carved into the metal, painted over to only cover them, not remove. _Freak_ is the freshest of them, and it’s a stabbing reminder of how he comes off to his classmates. For a fleeting moment, she thinks of all the harassment that’s going to come with this decision, the nasty looks and piercing words. She can handle that, though. She’s been through worse.

“Hey, do you think you can come over later? To talk?”

His face is a mix of excitement and nerves. “I have work—”

“I mean way, _way_ later. I’ll leave my window open.”

“Not good enough to use the front door?”

“I don’t want my parents to know something’s up; my mom’s been acting weird as of late.”

“Not too late; I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“Neither have I.”

Anticipation buzzes in her bones for the rest of the day. She’s hardly paying attention to any of her classes, worry stuck deep in her stomach. More than once, her gaze stuck out the window, she’s wondered how Jonathan’s doing, if he’s just as nervous. If he knows what she’s going to ask, if he’s dreading the talk, dragging his feet through the hours.

Mike kicks her under the table at dinner, prompting her to look up into questioning looks. She’d been asked how school was today, and she’s so out of it she didn’t even hear the sentence. Fibbing, head swimming, she mentions a test she’s worried about and retreats up to her room after scarfing down the remains of her plate.

Alone, she throws open her physics textbook and starts to do problem sets. She’s missed enough class that the last few days have been confusing. Studying helps her clear her head, with the added bonus of making hours fly by. She says good night to her mother through the door and turns off her overhead light, but keeps the nightstand lamp on.

She doesn’t think Jonathan’s ever entered her room through the window and his clumsiness startles her out of a paragraph. Tossing her books to the other side of the bed, she rises to open the window, holding back a giggle as he struggles through.

“I thought you said you’d leave it open?”

“I meant unlocked.” She gestures for him to sit while she remains on her feet. She thinks better when she can pace. “Does your mom know…?”

“No. I said I’d be late from work.”

“Good, this might be long.” Nancy steeples her hands in front of her face, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. “I feel bad that we didn’t see much of each other this past year.”

“You were busy, I was more vigilant with Will’s safety—”

“But still. I should have made an effort. Jesus, I only waited for a month.”

“It’s in the past; we can focus on the now.”

"I don’t want this to just be…a fling, you know? I don’t want to fall out of it once things are really back to normal.” She takes a deep breath. “Do you really have feelings for me?”

“I’ve thought you were cute since seventh grade, but last year when we were stalking the Demogorgon, you really shone through. And I mean you, not the mask you wear. Christ, Nancy, we almost slept together. Do you really have to ask how I feel?”

“I just wanted to be sure.” She sits down beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch. “You’re still the strangest part about this.”

“Strange is good sometimes. It’s not boring.”

And he is far, far from boring.

She takes his scarred palm in hers, feeling the chill of the night still lingering on his skin. “If we go through with this, we have to be open with each other. There was a communication loss between Steve and me, and I don’t want that to happen with us as well. Can you trust me?”

He looks her over, eyes soft but calculating. “I can.”

This kiss is less needy. His hand shifts to her thigh, her fingers find his neck, tangle in his hair. She doesn’t feel the need to devour him, but the want is there, biting, kicking her heart to flutter in her ribcage. He rests his forehead against hers when they break apart, heat lingering.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he says softly before kissing her temples.

“If you picked one thing that’s happened in the past year as something you wouldn’t dream of happening in a million years, what would it be?”

“You.” Another kiss. “Definitely you.”

They sit in silence, resting against one another, for a few minutes more. It’s late, it’s understandable he has to get home even though she wants him to stay beside her. Another night. Sometime soon.

“Do you want to do something this weekend?” she asks when he’s got one foot out her window.

“Absolutely.”

 

Monday morning greets her with a kiss by her locker from Jonathan, looking the happiest she’s seen him in weeks. His smile is infectious and she wears it all the way to first period. Allie slides beside her with a confused, mildly disturbed look.

“Nancy, did you seriously dump Steve Harrington for _Jonathan Byers_?”

News spreads too damn fast here. “And if I did?”

Allie puts her hand to Nancy’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I haven’t felt better in a year.”

**Author's Note:**

> Loving both Steve and Jancy is hard. It's so goddamn hard.


End file.
